Google, Privacy And Choice

Ken McCracken • December 2, 2007

Now that Google is hinting at an online storage solution (to possibly be called Gdrive), I see the privacy zealots are already atwitter. Which I don’t understand.
I mean, it isn’t like Google is forcing us to use this new online storage product. If you’re afraid of Google going through personal stuff you have stored on their servers, then don’t store your personal stuff on their servers. Back when Gmail was shiny and new these same people made noise about privacy then, but that hasn’t stopped just about everyone I know from having a Gmail account anyway. It’s all about choice. Just as most concerns about what is and is not decent to be on television can be solved by simply changing the channel (or turning the TV off), privacy concerns can be solved by not using products you don’t feel adequately protect your privacy.
Plus, it’s not like you have to use this new storage space for your bank account numbers or anything. You know what I use online storage for (I use Amazon’s S3 service)? A backup for my music, photos, articles and this blog. And you know what? If someone at Amazon wants to sit around looking at my vacation photos while listening to my Old Crow Medicine Show tracks, they’re welcome to it.
I’ll keep the stuff I don’t want them seeing somewhere else.

Tags: Politics, Technology

http://www.flashpointblog.com/ Brian

Agreed. But maybe part of their concern stems from how complicit the telecoms were when the government demanded that they hand over data. In that situation you might voluntarily choose to let a private company know certain information about you that you might not voluntarily share with the government, but your wishes get violated.
pparets

2hotel9 hits the nail right on the head. If files and data are valuable or sensitive enough to save, why would you save it on someone else’s system? DUH!
Or, who stores their most valued or private possessions in their neighbor’s cigar-box?
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Well there is the secure storage factor.

I keep the family pictures on two computers at home, an external hard drive AND an external hard drive I keep at work.

I could see using the Gdrive for off site storage of things like family pictures.

The other advantage would be that these same pictures would be available anywhere with a connection.
2Hotel9

Step by step. It is voluntary, just a convenience. And once usership is to a certain level it will become tied to other services. If you want to use service A you have to accept service D,F and M.

Want backup? Get an external or burn to disc. I am techilliterate and I can do it. I use a USB powered external, and burn to disc from it for the large volume stuff. Though, I got a 55.8 GB external, put all our pics, my PDFs and video files into it and still have 50 GB of free space. Burned pics to disc so we can take them to other people’s computers and let them take the ones they want.

I just don’t see online storage as a good idea. It is a privacy issue, to a degree, also, it is dependability. Far too many things can go wrong, I just don’t buy that it is preferable to hard storage.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Google, Privacy And Choice

Create a SAB Readerblog

Recent Comments